TV REVIEWS

TV REVIEWS; 'World Without Walls,' About Beryl Markham

By HERBERT MITGANG

Published: October 8, 1986

Correction Appended

TONIGHT'S beautifully crafted documentary film about the still somewhat mysterious life of Beryl Markham is rooted in the rediscovery of her personal memoir, ''West With the Night,'' which was reissued in 1983 by North Point Press, the publishing house in Berkeley, Calif., after being out of print for many years. Here is a good television illustration of something that movie studio producers learned long ago but many documentarians continue to overlook: book and script must come first because they provide the spine for a show.

The hourlong program, originated by KQED, the San Francisco public television station, will be shown at 10 o'clock on Channel 13. It is titled ''World Without Walls: Beryl Markham's African Memoir.''

What makes the program so appealing is, above all, its central personality. She appears on camera, modestly talking little about herself, in all-too-brief scenes that tantalize the viewer. In her stately looks and flaming manner, even in her early 80's, Mrs. Markham bears a resemblance to Vanessa Redgrave. On the broadcast, which is narrated by Lyle Talbot, the author's words are spoken by Diana Quick, the actress who played Julia in ''Brideshead Revisited.'' Neither Mr. Talbot nor Miss Quick is visible; their absence helps to maintain the illusion of reality.

Who was Beryl Markham? In an interview in Kenya, a friend on the program says, ''She grew up a wild thing.'' As an English child living with her father in a colonial atmosphere before World War I, she spent most of her time exploring and hunting with her black playmates. She learned to fly in the 1930's, became a bush pilot, delivering the mail and scouting wild beasts for the great white hunters. The producers of the program have found footage of those old biplanes, soaring over the hills and valleys, to match her words.

In a daring long-distance solo flight, she went ''West With the Night'' from England across the Atlantic and crash-landed in Nova Scotia in 1936. When she came to New York, Fiorello H. La Guardia, standing a head or more below her but looking every inch the Mayor, greeted her on the steps of City Hall. It is one of many nostalgic scenes in the broadcast. In more recent times, Mrs. Markham is seen as a thoroughbred racehorse trainer, who won the Kenya Derby a record six times.

In the background of her book -and explored much more thoroughly in the documentary - are facts about her three marriages and several romances. Running through her life were friendships with such other African literary figures as Isak Dinesen and Ernest Hemingway who, reading ''West With the Night,'' said, ''She can write rings around all of us.'' Her relationships were marked by tragedies, yet she had remarkable recuperative powers.

The language of the documentary, illustrating her words, soars. For example: ''The dooryard of Nairobi falls into the Athi Plains. One night I stood there and watched an aeroplane invade the stronghold of the stars. It flew high; it blotted some of them out; it trembled their flames like a hand swept over a company of candles.''

What the writers and producers -Steve Talbot, Joan Saffa (also the editor) and Judy Flannery - have done so dramatically is fuse Mrs. Markham's words from her book with black-and-white newsreel film from the past and color footage they photographed on location in Kenya. Fortunately, the broadcast was assembled when Mrs. Markham was alive and while her friends on the program spoke of her in the present. She died last August in a hospital in Nairobi. On Oct. 26, she would have been 84 years old.

Photo of Beryl Markham, 1930's

Correction: November 5, 1986, Wednesday, Late City Final Edition A review on Oct. 8 of ''World Without Walls: Beryl Markham's African Memoir,'' a television documentary, misstated the credit for a segment of film photographed in Kenya. That segment was produced by Barry Shlachter and directed by Andrew Maxwell-Hyslop.